Penza, 4 June 2014. PenzaNews. Festival of public organizations and city communities “Good Penza,” which will be held in the park named after V. Belinsky on the Day of Russia, June 12, will be a celebration for the residents of Penza. This opinion was expressed by the executive director of the community foundation “Civil Union” Oleg Sharipkov during a meeting with reporters, held at the press center of news agency PenzaNews on Wednesday, June 4.

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“This year's festival will be the third one.[...] The money for “Good Penza” was allocated by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, which supports such activity in the cities,” Oleg Sharipkov said.

According to him, each organization will have an opportunity to present themselves and their projects in the park named after V. Belinsky, which is situated opposite Penza Regional Drama Theater.

Oleg Sharipkov stressed that the initiators of the project “Good Penza” seek to show and tell the residents about public organizations of the city.

“People must have a place where they could go after work or on the weekend and do something useful, express themselves. And such a place, according to our idea, must be either a non-profit organization or and city community, and there enogh of these in Penza. That is why we came up with this celebration of city communities and public organizations,” Oleg Sharipkov said.

He reminded that the first such festival called “Good city of St. Petersburg” was held in the northern capital of Russia in 2010, and since then the movement “Good cities” is gradually covering major regional centers across the country.

He added that the festival will be visited by the representatives of seven cities where such festivals are not held yet, but who want to bring in such a tradition to their hometowns.

“These are — Voronezh, Tambov, Lipetsk, Perm, Yaroslavl, Pskov, Vologda. People from different cities will come to see how it all goes. Then — on June 13-14 — they will take a two-day training in “Civil Union.” They also want to meet with representatives of the authorities to see how they work with community organizations. We hope that this will be a gift of experience from Penza to other regions,” Oleg Sharipkov concluded.